Guy Earlscourt's wife : a novel

Front matter

on deposit from

Massey College

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Part First, Chap

I. — Duke Mason’s Adventure . •

II. — What Duke Mason saw and heard . .

III. — Mr. Mason eiopes ....

IV. — In the Waiting-room .

V. — Robert Hawksley ....

VI. — The dawn of the Fourteenth of April •

VII. — At St. George’s, Hanover Square

VIII. — “ Whistled Down the Wind” . . .

IX. — At Half-Moon Terrace . . „

X. — Told in the Twilight . . . •

TAGS

. . 23

. • 37

♦ • 45

. • 57

. . 68

. • 74

• • 83

PART SECOND. I. — After Fourteen Years. . * * ... 94

II. — At Montalien Priory . ...... 103

III. — “ All night in Lyndith Grange ” . . , . . 0 121

IV. — Face to Face . 133

V. — Polly’s Misdeeds . 142

VI.- -Which treats of Love’s Young Dream and other things . 157

VII. — How Robert Hawksley kept his word . 1 66

VIII. — Lady Charteris hears the truth ..... 180

IX. — The Dawn of the New Life ..... 188

X. — The Last Day

CONTENTS.

PART THIRD. O: AJ*. t AGB

I. — After Two Years . 207

II. — The Road to Ruin . .221

III. —Paulina . 232

IV. — “ And now I live, and now my life is done * • . . 248

V. — At Brighton . 263

VI. — In which Miss Lyle is disposed of . .... 274

VII. — “ A New Way to pay Old Debts” ..... 287

VIII. — “ Camilla’s Husband” ....... 297

IX. — On Christmas Eve . 306

X. — “ Such a Mad Marriage never was before” . . . 31 1

PART FOURTH. I. — After Six Y ears . 320

II. — A Belle of Five Seasons . 330

III. — Held asunder . . 339

IV. — Working in the Dark . 351

V. — “ Paulina to Alice ” . 366

VI. — “ For a Woman’s Sake” ...... 381

VII. — The Verdict of the Coroner’s Jury . • • • . 399

VIII. — “ How Pride bowed and fell” . • . . . 407

Guy Earlscourts Wife.

Chapter I. Duke Mason S Adventure

UKE MASON had lost his way.

There could be no doubt about it. As he paused in perplexity and gazed around him, five struck sharply from the distant Speckhaven churches, clearly heard through the still, frosty air, and at 5:10 the express train from London left Speckhaven station. Only ten minutes to spare, and completely lost and bewildered, a stranger in Lincolnshire, and with not a notion of whereabouts he might be now.

Mr. Mason paused with a face of disgust at his own stupidity, and looked about him. Westward lay the fens and marshes, melting drearily away into the low gray sky ; eastward spread the wide sea, a bleak blast sweeping icily up, with all the chill of the German Ocean in its breath ; and north and south, the dismal waste land stretched away treeless, houseless, unspeak¬ ably forlorn and deserted.

The month was March, the day the 25th. Was Duke Mason

1*

IO

DUKE MASON'S ADVENTURE .

likely to forget the date of that memorable day, when he lost his way, and the romance of his life began ?

For seven and twenty years his life had gone on, as flat, as dull, as uneventful as those flat marshes that lay on every side of him, as gray and colorless as yonder cold gray sea, and on this twenty-fifth of March, wending his way at his leisure, to catch the express train for London, and mistaking the road, an adven¬ ture so singular and romantic befell him, as to almost atone for those hopelessly stupid and respectable seven-and-twenty years.

The short March day was darkening already. The yellow wintry sun had dropped out of sight down there behind the fens and sand hills ; sky and sea were both of the same cold gray, except where one long yellow line westward marked the sombre sunset.

“It reminds one of Byron’s poetry,” thought Mr. Mason, who, being an artist in a very small way, had an eye for atmos¬ pheric effects ; ££ lead-colored sea, melting into lead-colored sky — dull yellow glimmer westward. Flat marshes, and wet fens, sea-fog creeping up, and solitary individual in foreground, gazing moodily at the creeeping gloom. I’ve seen worse things on the line, in the academy, and hundreds of people agape with admi¬ ration, only unhappily this sort of thing is much more attractive in oil or water colors than in reality, at five o’clock of a cold March evening, without a house or a soul near, and just too late for the train. I wonder where I am. I’ll try on a little way, and find out if I can, without going round to the town.”

Mr. Mason gave up contemplating the general Byronic as¬ pect of the scene, and went forward on his lonely road.

He was mounting the rising ground now, and in ten minutes more stopped again and knew exactly where he was.

“ The Grange, by all that’s mysterious ! ” he exclaimed aloud; “ and five miles from the station if an inch. What an ass I must have been, to be sure, to take the wrong turning, when I’ve been along here fifty times during the last fortnight.”

It looked like the end of the world. A high stone wall rose up abruptly, barring all further progress — two massive stone gates frowned darkly on all observers. Within rose the waving trees of a park, and in their midst you caught sight of tall chimneys and the peaked gables of a red-brick mansion.

Duke Mason had come upon the Grange in the spectral twi¬ light of the March day, and the Grange was that most awful habitation, ££ a haunted house.”

It was a weird scene and hour. He was perhaps as matter

DUKE MASON'S ADVENTURE.

I )

Df-fact and unimaginative a young man as you will easily find, but Duke’s skin turned to “ goose flesh ” as he stood and thought of the awful stories he had heard of yonder solitary mansion among the trees.

It was so deathfully still — it was like the enchanted castle of the Sleeping Beauty, only far more grim, else the handsome young prince had never summoned up courage to enter ; it was like a huge mausoleum ; no smoke curled up from the great twisted chimneys, no dog barked, no sound but the moaning of the wind among the trees, broke the ghastly silence.

“ And yet people eat, and drink, and sleep there,” mused Mr. Mason ; “ and it’s more dismal and more dead than the tomb of the Pharaohs. And they say there’s a lady shut up there as lovely as all the houris of Mahomet’s paradise. If a fellow could only get in there now and see for himself.”

The young man looked wistfully at the frowning gates, at the solid masonry, as he had many a time looked and longed be¬ fore. You have read how African travellers brave burning winds, sandy deserts, fever and plague, to return to that fatal and fascinating land once they have seen it. Some such i?re. sistible witchery did this lonely, haunted house hold ovei this very commonplace young man from London.

Day after day he had come thither and sketched the grim stone walls, the massive gates, the tossing trees, and the peaked gables, but no sign of life had he ever seen, no glimpse of the Sleeping Beauty, hidden away in its desolate walls, had he ever obtained.

The place was known as Lyndith Grange, and like sweet Thomas Hood’s Haunted House, lay

“Under some prodigious ban of excommunication.”

Two hundred odd years ago, before this gray March gloam¬ ing, in the days when gentlemen wore velvet doublets and slim rapiers, and pinked their neighbors under the fifth rib for verv little provocation, there dwelt in yonder silent mansion a fierce old warrior, who had brought home to the Grange a pale, pen¬ sive young bride, as fair as a lily and almost as drooping. In¬ side those walls the honeymoon had been spent, and then Sir Malise went forth to fight for his king, and the pale bride was left alone. And then, the legend ran, of a fair-haired, handsome cavalier, who made his way through the ponderous doors, of a servant’s betrayal, of a fiery husband returning full of jealous

DUKE MAS OK’S ADVENTURE.

wrath, of a duel to the death in one of those oaken rooms, and of the handsome cavalier falling with a sword thrust through the heart at the frantic lady’s feet — of a mad woman shut up to shriek her miserable life away in those same dismal rooms, and of a stern old general who fell at the head of his men. And the fair- haired cavalier, and the lady with the wild streaming hair and woful face, haunted (said the legend) Lyndith Grange to the present day. No one lived in the place long, for certain, whether it was the ghosts, or the damp, or the loneliness that diove them away, and things gradually fell to decay, and the Lyndith family left the Grange to the rats and the spectres, and its own bad name, for many and many a long year.

But two years before this especial evening upon which Mr. Mason stands and scrutinizes it, the neighboring town of Speckhaven was thrown into commotion by the news that the Grange was occupied at last.

Furniture had come down from London — two servants — a hard-featured old woman, and a stolid boy, had purchased things in the town and brought them to the Grange. And in the silvery dusk of a May evening a tall gentleman — dark and grim — had been driven with a slender lady, closely veiled, to the haunted house from the Speckhaven station.

After that, for three or four weeks, no more was known ol those mysterious people or their doings. They were still at the Grange, but no one visited them ; their very names were un¬ known, the great gates were always locked and bolted, and the hard-featured old woman and stolid boy kept their master’s secrets well and told no tales.

One stormy June night, as Dr. Worth sat in his parlor, in the bosom of his family, slippered and dressing-gowned, thanking his gods that the work of that day was ended, there came such a thundering knock at the front door, and directly after such a peal at the office bell, as made the chief physician of Speckhaven spring to his feet and grind something suspiciously like an oath between his teeth.

“It’s a lady took sudden and uncommon bad,” his servant announced, “ which the gentleman says his carriage is at the door, and you’re to come immediate, if you please, sir.”

Dr. Worth groaned; the rain was pouring, the night was dark as the regions of Pluto, and his ten o’clock glass of punch stood there untasted, and his bed all ready- In five minutes, coated and hatted, he joined the gentleman waiting in the passage. He had declined to enter.

DUKE MASON'S ADVENTURE.

n

u I took a sharp look at the fellow, sir,” Dr. Worth always when relating this marvellous story, and it was a story he was very fond, indeed, of relating. “ I had a sort of presenti¬ ment, if you believe me, even then, that there was something wrong about this sudden call. None of my lady patients were likely to be ‘ took sudden and uncommon bad.’ You sec that account could only apply to one interesting class of patients, and I scrutinized my gentleman keenly as he stood in the pas¬ sage. But his broad-brimmed hat was slouched over his nose, and his overcoat collar so turned up that I could see nothing but a luxuriant crop of black whiskers and a cruelly aquiline nose.”

“Who’s the lady, sir?” brusquely demanded Dr. Worth. “ No patient of mine, I know. And what’s the matter ? ”

“For Heaven’s sake, don’t stop to talk now!” exclaimed the gentleman. “ W e’ve five miles to go and the road is beastly. I’ll tell you as we drive along.”

The doctor hastened after him to the carriage — a handsome landau and pair — and the driver whirled them off directly. Only once during that night drive, through the pouring rain and inky darkness, did the stranger open his lips.

“ We are going to Lyndith Grange ; and the case is what you medical men call an interesting one, I believe. I have only one request to make ; that is, that you will talk of this matter as little as possible. I will double, treble, quadruple your fee.” And then silence fell.

“ And you might have knocked me down without a feather when I heard our destination,” says Dr. Worth, when he tells the story, and he tells it to this day with the greatest gusto. “ I was to visit the Lyndith Grange, see the mysterious lady, and get my fee quadrupled. Not speak of it, indeed — I who never had an adventure in my life. It was teeming, a clear case of cats and dogs, but what would a water-spout have mat¬ tered now ? ”

They reached the Grange — the ponderous gates flew open— - Ihe.y whirled up a long avenue and stopped. A minute later and the doctor, at the heels of his leader, was traversing draughty comdors and endless suites of dreary rooms. At the door of an apartment, in a long, chill hall, the mysterious gentleman halted.

“ Your patient is here, doctor,” he said, impressively. “Use all your skill to-night. Remember, the lady must be saved / ”

And then he held the door open for the doctor to enter;

DUKE MASON’S ADVENTURE.

U

closing it immediately, and Dr. Worth found himself in a vas'. room, all oak flooring, oak panelling, massive old furniture, and a huge curtained bed in the centre of the room, big enough and gloomy enough for a sarcophagus. A wood fire burned in one of the tiled fireplaces — a couple of wax candles made specks of light in the darkness, and the hard-featured old woman sat in a chair, sewing on little garments by the wan light.

At half-past ten Dr. Worth entered that room. At half-past two he left it. The old woman held a female infant, this time, in her arms, and during all those hours the Speckhaven doctor had never once seen the face of his patient. The heavy silken curtains shaded her in deepest gloom, and her face had been persistently turned from him and buried in the pillows.

She seemed very young — on the delicate left hand a wedding-ring shone, masses of golden hair fell like a veil over her — the voice in which once or twice she answered him was sweet and fresh — beyond that all was guesswork.

The man, still hatted and overcoated, was pacing up and down the long hall when the doctor came forth.

‘‘Well ?” he asked, in a voice of suppressed intensity. “Well,” replied Dr. Worth, rather shortly, “it A well. The lady’s ‘as well as can be expected,’ and the ba.by’s about the size of a full-grown wax doll.”

“ And she is sure to live ? ”

“ That depends upon which 1 she ’ you mean. They’re both shes. If you mean the lady — ”

“ The lady, of course ! ” said the gentleman, angrily and haughtily.

“The lady’s all right, then, with common care, but I wouldn’t ke to stake my reputation upon the baby’s existence. Still, s it’s a girl, and taking the natural obstinacy and contrariess of the sex into consideration, I dare say it will insist upon ving also, in spite of nature and its present Liliputian proortions. I’ll return to-morrow, of course, and — ”

“And, with all deference to you, sir, you’ll do nothing of the art. You’ll return no more. Here’s your fee— I think you’ll id it ample. My man will drive you back to town, and the ss you say of this night’s work the better.”

In another half hour the Speckhaven doctor was again in the uosorn of his family, th e richer by fifty guineas for his four hours’ work.

DUKE \ MASON’S ADVENTURE .

And just two weeks later the mysterious inhabitants of the Grange vanished as suddenly and strangely as they had come and the old house was given over again to the murdered cava her and mad lady.

For nearly two years, and then again, as unexpectedly as before, a tall gentleman came down by the London train, bring¬ ing a slim, veiled lady and same two servants back. The gentleman left the lady and returned by the next train, and who they might be, and whether they were 'he same, and what they could mean by such unaccountable goings on, all was conjecture in the town of Speckhaven. This was two months before this twenty-fifth of March on which Duke Mason stands and gazes, and no one had penetrated the secret, or seen the lady yet. If he only could be the man.

He had wished the same wish at least a score of times, and nothing had come of it.

On this evening Destiny had made up her mind to let him have his way.

As he stood there in the gloaming, he heard, for the first time, voices and footsteps within. His heart gave a leap. The footsteps were fast approaching, the voices drawing near, carriage-wheels ground over the gravelled avenue.

“You’ll need to drive fast, Joseph,” said a woman’s voice. “ You haven’t ten minutes to get to the station, and it’s as much as your place is worth to keep the master waiting.”

“ Don’t I know that — hang ’em ! ” responded a sulky voice : “ a string o’ oaths fit to sink a ship if a chap’s half a quarter o’ a second behind time. I tell you what, Misses Grimshaw, the wages is good, I don’t deny, but I’ll be jiggered if I can stand this life much longer. Newgate’s a pallis ’longside of it.”

The sound of bolts withdrawing, of a key turning slowly in a rusty lock, warned the listener they were about to appear. Duke Mason darted behind one of the huge buttresses — the falling darkness screening him as well. He could see quite plainly, himself unobserved.

A heavy-featured groom drove out in a two-wheeled chaise, &nd an elderly, thin-faced woman stood looking after him, and swinging a huge key.

“ Look here, Joseph,” she said, “ I wish you’d lock the gate, and take the key with you ; I’ve the master’s dinner to get, and you know how particular he is, and it’s nigh on a quarter of a mile’s walk down here from the house, and it’s no good fetch¬ ing me dawn again when you’re coming back. Just lock i6

WHAT DUICK MASON SAW AND HEARD .

>he gate on the outside, Joseph, will you, and take the key along ? ”

Slie inserted the key on the outside, and hurried rapidly up the avenue out of the cold, shutting the gate before she went. Joseph looked stolidly at the closed gates.

“I’ve left it unlocked afore, and no harm came of it, and 1 arn’t going to get down now. If there never was a lock on this old rat-trap, people would run a mile sooner than /enture in, and wery right they is. I’ll be back in an hour, and arn’t goin’ to get out to do it, and save your old bones, Mother Grimshaw.”

With which Joseph gathered up the reins, and ga ye the horse his head, and trotted off.

Duke Mason emerged, his breath fairly taken av ay with sur¬ prise and delight.

At last ! There stood the gates unlocked and unbolted, and the way to the hidden princess was clear. He drew the key from the key-hole, opened the massive gate cautiously, drew it after him again, and in the chill gray of the March evening stood within the grounds of the Grange.

Chapter II. What Duke Mason Saw And Heard

LONG avenue of firs, black against the evening sky, led up to the house. Through the spectral trees the wind wailed in a very uncomfortable and ghastly way, considering the evil reputation of the place, and I don’t think Mr. Mason would have been very much surprised, if the fair-haired cavalier, all gory and ghastly, had stepped out from beneath the sombre shadows, and barred his way. Noth¬ ing ever did surprise Duke very greatly, for that matter ; he might have been a scion of all the Tudor Plantagenets, so un¬ affectedly nonchalant was he.

Grasping his walking-stick a little tighter, Mr. Mason made his way up the gloomy avenue of firs. It was quite dark now, and the very “ blackness of darkness ” reigned in this most gloomy drive. There would be a moon presently ; pending its rising, the gloom of Tartarus reigned, ft was just a quarter of

WHAT DUKE MASQAT SAW AND HE AED.

I?

a mile to the house. Five minutes’ sharp walking brought him to it, looming up a blacker, bulkier shadow among the shadows, A long, low, irregular mansion, much inclined to run to chim¬ neys and gables and turrets, with small leaden casements, and two lamps burning over the portico entrance. If it had been broad day, and he could have deciphered anything through the ivy, the intruder might have read how the house had been built by one Sir Henry Lyndith, in 1552, when good Queen Bess, that first asserter of woman’s rights, had ruled merry England with an iron rod.

The neglected grounds were entirely overrun with tall ferns ; the trees grew unpleasantly close to the small diamond-pane casements.

One gigantic elm spread its branches so near that, swinging himself into its lower arms, Mr. Mason could sit at his ease and stare through the only lighted windows in the whole long fa9ade of the dreary mansion. Away in the rear another light glimmered from the kitchen regions, no doubt. Along the front, a red glow shone from the curtainless and open case¬ ments, and more vividly interested than he had ever been in the whole course of his life before, Duke Mason bent forward to listen and look.

“ If it were a stall in the third row of the Britannia, and I was waiting for the curtain to rise on a new drama of my own, I could not feel one whit more breathlessly absorbed,” the young man thought. “ I wonder what Rosanna would say if she could see me now ; and I wonder how this lark of mine is going to end. Won’t the fellow stare when he finds the key gone ? ”

The picture Mason saw was one that haunted him in his sleep¬ ing and waking dreams his life long. A long low room, oak panelled, oak floored, with here and there rich rugs covering its slippery blackness, faded tapestry on the walls, tapestry wrought centuries ago by many a fair Alice and Edith of the Lyndith race, massive furniture, rickety with time, a wood-fire blazing cheerily on the hearth, the only cheery thing in the apartment, and a little cottage piano in a corner standing Open, with music upon it, as if the performer had but lately left.

The piano was the only modern innovation. 11k room toolf you back a couple of centuries, and the cavalier with his pow¬ dered love-locks, his velvet doublet, his lace ruffles, and deadly rapier, would have looked a much more proper gentleman in yonder than a young man of Mr. Mason’s sort in a cutawaj r8

WHAT DUKE MASON SAW AND HE ARD, coat, mutton-chop whiskers, and the baggy, cross-barred trou. sers, so dear to the masculine British heart.

“ A very charming bit of still life, after Watteau," thought the spectator ; “ a very pretty interior, indeed. Now, if the dramatis personae would but appear ! ”

The thought had barely crossed his mind when, as if it had evoked her, the door opened, and a young lady came in. Duke gave a gasp — .

Here was the sleeping beauty, the hidden princess, the mys¬ terious houri of the haunted house, herself.

“ And, by Jove ! a beauty of the first water ! ” thought Duke, with as near an approach to enthusiasm as was in his nature ; “ the best-looking young woman I’ve seen this month of Sun¬ days.”

Mr. Mason was right — she was very pretty — very pretty in¬ deed. A petite figure, slim, youthful, supple, two great dark eyes, that lit up her small face like dusk stars, a profusion oi waving yellow hair, that fell in a shining shower to her waist. It was before the days of gold powder and copper filings, so that abundant cloud of amber tresses was doubtless the lady’s own, direct from a beneficent Providence, instead of a Parisian hair-dresser. The large dark eyes and the golden hair made such a very remarkable contrast that you quite forgot whether her nose were aquiline or Grecian, whether her forehead were high or low, her mouth a rosebud or otherwise.

A dress of wine-colored silk trailed behind her, diamonds twinkled in her ears and on her hands, and in the firelight she made a picture so dazzling that Duke gazed breathless, be¬ witched.

*

She went up to the mantel, a tall structure of black maible, and leaning lightly against it, looked steadfastly into the red flame. Her clasped hands hung loosely before her, the wil¬ lowy figure drooped, the straight black brows were bent, the mouth compressed, the whole attitude, the whole expression, full of weary, hopeless pain.

“Can that be the heroine of Dr. Worth’s story?” Duke wondered. “ She had a child, and this small beauty seems little better than a child herself. 1 shouldn’t take her to be seventeen. No, it’s quite impossible ; it can’t be the same. She’s uncommonly pretty, and got up regardless of expense, but she’s in very bad humoi all the same.”

For nearly ten minutes t> e young lady stood without mov¬ ing, still gazing with knit brows into the leaping firelight Their

WHAT DUKE MASON SAW AND HEARD.

with a long, heartsick sigh, she started, crossed the room once or twice, always lost in deep and painful thought, then sud denly seated herself at the piano, and began to sing. She be gan very low and plaintively, but as she sung, her voice rose, her black eyes kindled, a flush passed over the clear, dark pallor of her face. Her whole heart was in the song, “ Roberto ch til che adcno 1” Lovingly, lingeringly, with a sort of impassionate intensity, she dwelt on the name, on the caressing Italian words, “ Roberto oh tu che adoro /”

Then, more suddenly than she had sat down, she arose, her whole face working, and held out her arms with a suppressed sob.

“ Robert ! ” she cried, “ oh, my Robert ! my Robert ! come back ! ”

Duke Mason thrilled to the heart as he watched that pas¬ sionate, despairing gesture — as he heard that wild appeal. It was the old commonplace story, then — so old, so common¬ place, so unspeakably pathetic always — “ crossed in love,” as the housemaids call it. This beautiful and mysterious fairy princess imprisoned here had a lover in the background, just like ordinary young persons, and a flinty-hearted parent or guardian had shut her up here, pending such time as she should come to her senses.

Just at that instant the rapid roll of wheels outside told Duke the chaise was returning. An instant later, and the gates were flung wide open, and the chaise whirled rapidly up the drive to the house.

“ I wonder what he thought when he found the key gone ! ” reflected Mr. Mason with a chuckle.

The chaise stopped before the portico entrance, and, by the light of the lamps, the watcher in the tree saw a tall man spring out, say a few words rapidly and authoritatively, as one accus¬ tomed to command, and disappear into the house. The car¬ riage was driven round to the rear, and silence fell upon Lyndith Grange.

The young lady in the lighted room had heard, and seen too. When Duke looked again, her whole attitude had changed. She Stood erect, her little figure seeming to dilate and grow tall, her head thrown back, her great eyes alight, her small hands tightly clenched.

“ Like a little game-cock ruffling his feathers for the combat,” thought the watcher. “ I wonder if this is Robert now ! Not likely though, or she wouldn’t look quite so belligerent.”

so

WHAT DUKE MASCN SAW AND HEARD.

That moment the door was flung open, and the gentleman entered. A tall gentleman, elderly and stout, and florid and good looking, with a great profusion of whiskers and iron-gray hair. A gentleman as grim and stern as Lyndith Grange itself who gave the young lady a cool glance, a cool nod, and a cool greeting.

u How do, Olivia? How do you find yourself to-night? Any change for the better since I saw you last, two weeks ago ? ’

He whirled up the easiest chair in the room before the fire as he spoke, stretched out his long legs to the blaze, threw back his head, looked half contemptuously, half compassionately, at the rigid figure of the girl.